Football Nation Cup: Extra time win sets up Semi v Kilby

Posted on Wednesday, February 21st, 2018

Spartans set up a home Semi Final Football Nation Qualifying Cup clash against East Kilbride next Tuesday after Ross Allum’s Extra Time solitary strike was enough to separate the sides as they defeated Gretna 2008 at Raydale Park.

With the Lowland League title race in full swing, Manager Dougie Samuel continued to utilise his squad with Andrew Stobie taking up guard between the sticks and there was a start for Spanish striker Guillermo Lamarca at the other end of the park.

Bright sky during the day meant for a clear cold starry night and the temperatures dipped in Dumfriesshire as the quarter final tie got underway.

The main source of men exuding a bountiful of energy during the opening quarter was the small band of home faithful who engaged with the visiting bench whilst harrumphing throughout as neither side took charge of the game.

Scott Maxwell made a telling run to one of the darkened corners of Raydale before whipping in a cross that fell to the head of Lamarca who headed into the bread basket of John Jamieson who was a thorn in the Spartans side throughout.

When Willie Bremner collected the ball on the bed of treacle on the half hour mark, he raced into the box only to be upended whilst looking to shape up a shot. Play raged on due to lack of interest in a penalty award from the man in the middle.

Half Time came and went without goals to note and it took until midway through the second before another save from Jamieson denied the deadlock to be broken. Thankfully for his own Defender Daniel Wadge, the shot stopper save his blushes by pulling off an instinctive save from point blank range.

It was Andrew Stobie next up to be the king of the keepers when he dived at full stretch to thwart Kevin Connelly with what would surely have been the winner.

Instead, the frozen fans were treated to more bang for their buck with an additional period of extra time.

Cometh the hour, well, 100 minutes to be honest, Ross Allum netted what proved to be the goal that paved the way to setting up an intriguing semi next week.

A long ball took a decidedly squirty bounce on the slippy quagmire and created some confusion between Allum, defender and goalie before the striker reacted the quickest to flick over Jamieson to find the net.

Play had barely the chance to get underway when Ian McFarland was invited by the Referee to partake in an early shower.

Maybe Subo had some nice smelling shower gel in his bag as he was joined with five minutes of the additional period to go by a Gretna lad who pick up a second yellow for a further transgression.

Extra Time Full Time: Gretna 2008 0-1 Spartans

Spartans: Stobie, Nixon (Brown), Maxwell, Corbett, Thomson, Guthrie, Lamarca (Allum), Bremner (Stevenson), Herd, McFarland , Stevens.  Unused: Carswell

Malt & Hops Man of the Match: Michael Herd